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Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

economist.com

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Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#81

Post by Isamu »

toyg wrote: post #77
chaostheory wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it extremely clear if it wasn't already obvious, I'm Chinese and I've lived both on the mainland and in South East Asia. > This is a common misconception, especially by people who have never lived in China. They just have to be careful not to publicly blame any politicians for the issue or try to organize some group activity to protest it. You've contradicted yourself pretty quickly; you haven't disputed my m…

Check your history - the internet is decentralized because it was designed to withstand a nuclear attack, nothing to do with censorship.

Actually it was not designed for for nuclear attack either, but packet switched networks have intrinsic merits.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#82

Post by contingencies »

imjustsaying wrote: post #53

wake me up when connections to non-Chinese servers (the vast majority of them) don't time out half the time, or connections to neighbors like HK and Singapore don't do crazy routing through Beijing, to America, to HK/Singapore and back instead of directly to HK/Singapore, or numerous key websites aren't outright blocked >lived in Shenzhen, the internets are broken and everybody knows it

It's not nearly so bad in Shenzhen as it is in some more remote parts of China. In Shenzhen, you can get around it in many ways, eg. HK phone with data roaming.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#83

Post by chaostheory »

toyg wrote: post #77
chaostheory wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it extremely clear if it wasn't already obvious, I'm Chinese and I've lived both on the mainland and in South East Asia. > This is a common misconception, especially by people who have never lived in China. They just have to be careful not to publicly blame any politicians for the issue or try to organize some group activity to protest it. You've contradicted yourself pretty quickly; you haven't disputed my m…

Check your history - the internet is decentralized because it was designed to withstand a nuclear attack, nothing to do with censorship.

I didn't say it was the sole reason, but 'one of the reasons'

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/10/06/353...

"But the people who were actually building this system, they weren't really thinking about Russian attacks. They were kind of rebellious anti-authoritarian types — they wanted power to the people. They called it 'computing power to the people.' And so they created a system in which every node on the Internet has the ability to store, to forward, to originate information. ... This decentralized system made it hard for the Russians to blow it up, but it also made it hard for the government or corporations to control the Internet. ..."

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#86

Post by CuriouslyC »

finid wrote: post #30
chaostheory wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the Japanese are polite and formal and like China there's a huge pressure to conform. However imo there's one key difference: the Japanese obsession with kaizen- constant improvement and striving for perfection. It may not override outward conformity for appearances sake, but imo there are enough Japanese who are madly in love and obsessed with the idea of attempting to achieve acme, that they're willing to risk…

Everything comes and goes. It's just the nature of things. When it's your time to lead the pack, you will, regardless of the cultural environment. Most of us (in the West) don't know it yet, but we're already in the Chinese Age . How long will their time last? The funny thing about the influence of culture on innovation is that when this country (USA) was rewriting the rules and breaking down boundaries this way and…

Empires are transient, and the more they try to control the people they rule, the more transient they become.

China has bet the farm on continual economic growth, and that worked for a while, but they're close to parity with the west now, so maintaining that rate of progress is going to become much more difficult. When the government fails to deliver continual rapid quality of life improvements, autocracy is going to become a major liability. They are going to be forced to either rapidly democratize, or become increasingly isolationist. I suspect that the government will push for the latter, though in the long run democratization is pretty much inevitable. The djinni is out of the bottle, and it's not going back.

This isn't to say that I see China collapsing per se, but there are some major speed bumps on the path to global domination.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#87

Post by Jackim »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #75
chaostheory wrote: post #9

> The common perception that China is incapable of innovation needs re-examining. No one is saying Chinese people can't innovate. The real question is whether Chinese people can innovate while inside China. (I wonder what percentage of current captains of industry in China studied abroad?) Why? Because innovation is essentially disrupting and rebelling against the status quo. ie breaking rules, disobedience, oppositi…

I've come to conclude any culture that teaches strong forms of "respect your elders" will have a tough time building an innovation economy.

Japan?

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#88

Post by chaostheory »

nullnilvoid wrote: post #58
chaostheory wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're missing the big picture. the status quo isn't limited to just a government. It can be a dominant company, tech standard, belief or way of thinking - the world is flat, there is only one true Church > Quite to the contrary, the Chinese government encourages tech innovations. No they do not. When you threaten your people with 'Conform or else...' or 'we will watch everything you do and listen to everything you s…

> you're missing the big picture. the status quo isn't limited to just a government. It can be a dominant company, tech standard, belief or way of thinking - the world is flat, there is only one true Church I am not sure who is missing the big picture. Only one true church? This world is diverse. It is not flat. It is round. Tech innovations are predominantly about tech. When do you see the silicon valley disrupt DC?…

>the world is flat, there is only one true Church I am not sure who is missing the big picture.

You misunderstood. All of those things were really dominant in the past in the West but people were brave enough to rebel and disagree and put it in writing to overcome it.

> The US political system basically stays the same since it was founded two hundred years ago.

Not true. In the beginning people didn't directly elect the president. Women weren't allow to vote. African Americans were once considered property. Political parties have come and gone. The list goes on.

> When do you see the silicon valley disrupt DC?

The end of SOPA was one example. I'm sure there will be more.

> Not if you are talking about tech innovations. The government does not give a crap if you talk about tech. They cannot care less. If you are trying to sabotage the government or the society, then it is different.

I strongly disagree. The problem is that almost everything can be seen as 'sabotaging society' including posting on forums.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#89

Post by CuriouslyC »

foldr wrote: post #45
rmason wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Tianenmen square protests failed ultimately because the rest of China didn't know they were going on. What happens now when with a flick of wechat the entire nation takes to the streets? All it will take is a leaders mistakes and a single spark. It's not a question of whether China will have free speech and democracy but when.

The Western world isn't doing a great job of advertising democracy at the moment. There's no natural progression towards free speech and democracy. It will happen if a majority of Chinese people are persuaded that it's a good idea. When they look at Trump and Brexit, I'm not so sure that they will be.

Having more control over their lives makes people intrinsically happier. As a result, even if everything else about their lives is the same, people in a democracy will be happier than people in an autocracy.

The Chinese people are riding a wave of growing affluence that is smoothing over the oppressive nature of the regime, but when growth stalls things are going to look very different.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#90

Post by SexyCyborg »

tmoreton wrote: post #3

WIRED UK did a great job going into more detail on Shenzhen, highly recommend watching the documentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY&t=8s

Wired doc is good in parts- there is no local "Maker culture" unless you invent a new use of the word.
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